With the announcement of its 56th season, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival turns back to a mainly Shakespeare-centric focus.

Recent seasons have included a mixture of Shakespeare and non-Shakespeare popular offerings, but in the 2013 summer season, CSF will produce three Shakespeare plays -- one comedy, one tragedy and one history.

The comedy slot will be filled by "A Midsummer Night's Dream," which will be helmed by the company's artistic director, Philip Sneed. "Midsummer"hasn't been part of a CSF season since 2007, and it is a popular and well-known play, especially for an outdoor summer production that will be performed in the Mary Rippon Theater on the University of Colorado campus.

The other show in the Rippon will be "Macbeth," starring Nigel Gore, whose Richard III earned favorable reviews last summer.

Returning to CSF to direct "Macbeth" will be Denver's beloved Jane Page, whose "To Kill a Mockingbird" was a festival favorite. This tragedy was last seen in a CSF season in 2008.

"Richard II" marks the beginning of a three-year commitment to produce plays in the cycle that takes us through what scholars refer to as the Henriad, which tracks the War of the Roses and the eventual ascension of Henry V to the throne.

The story is told over the course of four plays, beginning with "Richard II."

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"This is the third time in our history that we have approached these plays as a cycle," Sneed said. "Part of what we're doing is we're assembling the same creative team for all four parts, starting with the director, the designers and with many of the actors -- especially in the roles that reoccur in more than one part."

This cycle, which will be directed by James Symons, is also part of a larger program focusing on history that will include a summer course taught by a Shakespeare historian and the first glimpse at a play by Constance Congdon about Shay's Rebellion, an event that influenced the writing of the U.S. Constitution.

CSF has joined forces with Shakespeare & Co. of Lenox, Mass., to develop a series of plays that explore American history. This new project, "Making America: A History Play Cycle," is supported by a grant form the National Endowment for the Arts and Polis Schutz Family Foundation.

"We are hoping that by having a focus on Shakespeare's history plays over a three-year period," Sneed said, "we can also draw attention to this new series of American history plays."

CSF will also present a return of "Women of Will" in a condensed single-evening performance on after runs in New York and Prague. Tina Packer's show was popular last summer.

Rounding out the season will be a return of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)," a fun romp through much of The Bard's work.

After several years of presenting a Christmas show, CSF will not offer a holiday production this year. Several factors went into the decision, but the primary reason was that CSF lost money on the performances because of a variety of circumstances.

A refocus on Shakespeare and Shakespeare-inspired work in 2013 comes from a continuing effort on the part of CSF to strike the right balance of plays for company needs and it's audience's desires.

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